*** FUTURE POSTS WILL ALSO APPEAR AT 'NOW AND NEXT' : https://rolfnorfolk.substack.com
Friday, October 10, 2008
Back to Kondratieff
Thursday, October 09, 2008
A question
Would prudence have been rewarded, or would a Protestant adherence to the right course of action have been punished by falling exports and unemployment? In a global trading system, when one major player makes a mess of their money, must others do the same or be sorry?
Can the world be run on the principles of the efficient-market purists, or is there an advantage to the first to break ranks? Are monetarists doomed to merely understand what is going on, incapable of preventing it?
Hope
I increasingly suspect that one consequence of United States and Europe’s recent financial crisis will be a smaller deficit in both regions, and a smaller surplus in the emerging world.
Robert McHugh was right!
[The Dow] can be expected to drop to about the start of the pattern, at a minimum, meaning into the 9,000s over the intermediate-term... It is looking increasing likely to us that world central banks will choose hyperinflation rather than nominal decline in stock indices, which will force precious metals prices to rise sharply.
In gold-price terms, McHugh's Dow prediction came true on January 22 this year. Now it's come true in nominal terms, too (9,153.22 at 13:04 ET today) (UPDATE: 8.731.87 at 15:41).
It seems McHugh is an adherent of the Elliot Wave principle. Wikipedia gives a criticism of the theory:
The premise that markets unfold in recognizable patterns contradicts the efficient market hypothesis, which says that prices cannot be predicted from market data such as moving averages and volume. By this reasoning, if successful market forecasts were possible, investors would buy (or sell) when the method predicted a price increase (or decrease), to the point that prices would rise (or fall) immediately, thus destroying the profitability and predictive power of the method. In efficient markets, knowledge of the Elliott wave principle among investors would lead to the disappearance of the very patterns they tried to anticipate, rendering the method, and all forms of technical analysis, useless.
I think one could riposte that events have demonstrated that the efficient market does not exist.
A big figure
Oddly, this latter figure, in dollar terms, is very similar to the one approved by Congress - a little over $692 billion at today's retail conversion rates (and even closer in wholesale terms).
But the really interesting thing is the difference is in its relationship to the size of the population of the country, and the GDP:
Marc Faber recently said that the US needed $5 trillion to resolve the crisis, i.e. 7 times more than the amount approved by Congress. Britain's bailout fund is proportionately 7 times greater, and so, crippling cost to the taxpayer aside, maybe it could work.
And it has political implications. The average Brit is so innumerate that he doesn't know how to calculate 75% of 100, so don't expect him to understand that it wasn't simply "the banks" to blame, but the relaxation of Government monetary controls. Don't discount the possibility that, however undeservedly, Gordon Brown may win the next election.
End of the dollar as the world's reserve currency?
But what will countries do, that export to the USA? Devalue their own currencies? Or demand payment in euros? Or oil contracts? Even Setser admits to struggling to understand what's going on.
Jesse also comments on a report that the Gulf States may diversify into gold.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Currency devaluation time?
Are there any currency experts out there who can tell me whether the UK won't race to do the same? Will the Yen and the Renminbi be forced upwards, relatively speaking? Should we be buying dried food etc instead of holding cash?
FTSE prediction: poll results
Stop blaming the Americans
The Americans may have sold packaged mortgages, but our institutions here didn't have to buy stuff they didn't have the competence to analyze.
And we didn't have to have 6x earnings, LTV100%+, self-certification or a rush into buy-to-let.
This disaster is home-grown.
Crisis
Monday, October 06, 2008
Gold set to leap?
FTSE and Dow predictions revisited
I suggested on Wednesday that the market may already have lost much of its bubble, considered in real terms, and here below is my simple attempt at chartism.
Using these parameters, the late 90s and early 00s were well above trend, whereas last year's highs only just peeped above the upper line and the current value is hovering a little above the centre of the hi-lo wedge.
The implications are that the next low, if it comes soon, shouldn't be worse than around 4,500, and by 2010 (when I'm guessing the tide will turn) the bracket would be in the 4,700 - 7,000 bracket, with a midpoint of c. 5,850.
Taking the market at close yesterday and extrapolating to that 5,850 midpoint, would imply a future return (ignoring dividends) over the next 16 months, of c. 2.5% p.a. - not nearly as good as cash, especially in an ISA. On the same assumptions, to achieve an ex-dividend return of 6% p.a. would require entry into the market at c. 5,400.
On this tentative line of reasoning, we should be looking for a re-entry opportunity somewhere in the 4,500 - 5,400 level, say 5,000. Shall we wait for the next shoe to drop?
How bearish are you? Too much so? See the poll in the sidebar.
By the way, I did a similar exercise for the Dow the next day and it suggested to me that the range should be 7,000 - 10,000.
UPDATE
I'm in good company:
Mr Lenhoff [chief strategist at Brewin Dolphin] predicted that the FTSE 100 could settle between 4,500 and 4,600: "In this bearish phase the market has given up more than 50pc of the bull market gain, we are back where we were in early 2004. One of the key retraceable levels is thought to be two-thirds of a bull-market gain, which would be between 4,500 and 4,600. The market looks like it wants to give up the gain."
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Utter stupidity
When will the experts understand that Chindia will have the tools and skilled workers to rebuild their fortune, AFTER the Crash? Why on Earth has the East been subsidising the improvident West for so long, if not as part of a plan to extract all the means of production it could?
Do the experts not realize we have been in a state of economic warfare for years?
How to force the UK Government to give 100% guarantee on your deposits
Their guarantee:
"Backed by HM Treasury
100% secure
National Savings and Investments is backed by HM Treasury, so any money you invest with us is 100% secure."
The Easy Access Savings Account can take up to £2 million per person. In all, depending on your age, NS&I could take more than £6 million per head.
If enough people know about this, and act on it, only Northern Rock will be run-proof. HMG will have to provide an "Irish guarantee". Unless, of course, the Chancellor suddenly welches on government credit, and that really would be the end; or closes the door to new NS&I deposits.
Get in while you can?
But not into Ireland:
However, experts are already raising questions over the Irish scheme, and asking how much protection it really affords. Adrian Coles, the director general of the Building Societies Association, said savers should write to the Irish Embassy to ask them how they intended to guarantee UK savings, and how they would obtain enough sterling in the event of a bank failing.
"Has the Irish government quantified the potentially huge liabilities it is taking on by guaranteeing sterling deposits in Britain, where household cash savings amount to £1.1 trillion?" he said.
"Savers should beware that, if they switch accounts to take up this guarantee, they are effectively betting on the Irish government's ability to buy sufficient sterling in the foreign exchange markets.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
The Chinese and US mortgage-backed securities
New York Times, 4 September 2008:
China’s central bank is in a bind.
It has been on a buying binge in the United States over the last seven years, snapping up roughly $1 trillion worth of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The $1.7 Billion Payday: How Bill Gross Made a Killing on the Bailout - Seeking Alpha (14 September 2008)
... The upshot is, Treasury Secretary Paulson was happy to make an example out of equity investors like Miller, who knew they were taking a big risk in pursuit of a big return.
But no way, no how was Paulson about to blow out the holdings of one of America’s top creditors (China).
By some estimates, China has now amassed as much as $1.6 trillion in foreign reserves, with more than two-thirds of that parked in U.S. debt instruments (agency debt, treasury bonds and so on). Burn those guys in a bailout plan? You’ve got to be kidding. Fiscally speaking, that would be like shooting ourselves in the foot with a machine gun.
So Gross had a pretty good lock on the situation. He knew it was sharp to align his interests with China’s. And to further ensure a positive outcome, the Bond King took every opportunity by ranting and raving from his soapbox -- a mighty big soap box -- about how government should be on the lookout for mortgage holders, and how letting mortgage owners suffer would be a travesty.
When news came out that the Fannie and Freddie debt holders would indeed be kept whole (as China demanded and Gross knew would happen), the value of those debt holdings soared, giving Gross a $1.7 billion pop in the value of his fund.
Business Week, 27 Sept 2008 (via Fox44 website)
"Perfect" Bond Asset Class?
Bill Larkin, portfolio manager for fixed income at Cabot Money Management in Salem, Mass., advises people to stay away from Fannie and Freddie debt except for shorter-dated maturities, since the agencies' fate remains to be seen. If they become part of the government, investors will win, whereas if they are broken into pieces, investors will lose because the debt will be much less liquid. He recommends other government agency debt such as that issued by the Federal Home Loan Bank or Ginnie Mae. He also suggests people buy these bonds to hold until maturity instead of buying them to trade them.
Aha!
... U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson is in Beijing to persuade the Chinese central bank to buy more securities from Ginnie Mae, a corporation under HUD that guarantees $417 billion in federally insured, fixed-rate mortgages.
... Ginnie Mae is ``in a better position than most'' to offer mortgage products because, unlike Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it provides the full backing of the U.S. government, Jackson said. Mortgage securities offer China's central bank better returns than U.S. Treasury bonds at the same level of credit risk, he said.
Now the chickens are flying back to roost.
Snap! And crackle...
Bailout Bill $700 billion
Additional Pork $150 billion
Dow (-484) in 3 hours $600 billion
Total carnage to you, The Taxpayer $1.45 trillion
I would almost say, buy into the packages the Chinese bought; but I expect there are ways to make the Chinese the preferred creditors and stiff everybody else.
Remember that Denninger has been saying recently, buy a good home safe and get your cash out of the bank? Let's see how unreasonable his doomster position turns out to be.